


working on my backwards walk

by soofyahn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, minus you know the painless part, the social network AU, this is the worst thing i've ever done but at least it's quick and painless right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soofyahn/pseuds/soofyahn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>teeny little social network AU ficlet where liam is heart-on-his-sleeve wardo and zayn is oblivious mark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	working on my backwards walk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knitastrophe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knitastrophe/gifts).



> i wrote this like three months ago after watching the social network on it's 3rd birthday (kill me) and i found it tonight and i was like, well. might as well share it. 
> 
> title from the song "my backwards walk" by frightened rabbit which is so mark/wardo it hurts.

“You and Perrie split up?” Liam asks, trying his best to mask his voice so that he does not sound in the least bit optimistic about the situation at hand. He leans against the wall, digging his hands into the pocket of his pants. Zayn looks…off. Even if Liam hadn’t found out this news before walking in the doors of Kirkland, he could surely tell by the empty bottle – bottles, actually, he realizes – of beer scattered on Zayn’s desk. Not to mention the look on Zayn’s face.

Zayn squints up at Liam now, like he’s some sort of mind-reader. “How did you know that?”

 _It’s a Tuesday and you’re drunk,_ Liam wants to say.

Instead he opts for, “It’s on your blog.”

Liam had been in his dorm room working on homework when he’d let his mind wander and venture onto livejournal for a few minutes. Zayn had made a series of posts about coding and hacking and things that Liam has never quite understood (never cared to understand, really) but he kept scrolling, and there it was. Blatantly calling Perrie a bitch and then complimenting her face within like, three minutes. Nice.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, eyes cast down suddenly.

Sometimes Liam thinks Zayn’s a lost cause when it comes to relationships.

But, as his best mate, he’s got to be here to put him back together each and every time he inadvertently insults a girl and gets dumped for being an insensitive, oblivious jerk. And maybe sometimes point out to him, very cautiously, that maybe Zayn should practice being more aware of others’ emotions. But certainly not for Liam’s sake. Certainly not.

“Are you alright?” Liam asks then, because Zayn is sort of unpredictable. When you expect him to care, he doesn’t, and when you expect him to brush off a two-week relationship like it was nothing, he’ll fall apart in his own Zayn-like ways.

Which, of course, now looks like getting drunk and coding and eating red vines and blogging or…whatever he’s exactly doing at this hour with that look on his face.

“I need you,” Zayn says instead of answering him. He sort of has this problem with answering direct questions when something’s wrong, Liam thinks.

But okay. Liam can do this, forget about his homework for one night, he can watch a movie with Zayn or catch a marathon of America’s Funniest Home Videos or distract him in any other way he can possibly think of – anything Zayn needs. Liam will do that. He will.

“I’m here for you,” Liam says, because he is, he always is. And it’s ridiculous, how much he’d give for Zayn, how much he appreciates his laugh and his stupid coding and two-hundred identical hoodies. How these things make up who he is, someone Liam cares about, someone Liam would do just about anything for.

Liam kind of wears his heart on his sleeve.

“No, I need the algorithm you used to rank chess players,” Zayn says now, turning to his computer.

And suddenly Liam’s face heats up, of course that’s what he meant, he’s just trying to hack or whatever to deal with this. This is how he’ll cope.

But he’s still not quite sure. He’s got this look in his eyes…

“Are you okay?” Liam asks instead of addressing him.

Zayn doesn’t answer, of course, fingers running across the keyboard, and Liam knows he’s lost any hope of dealing with this situation the normal way. “We’re ranking girls.”


End file.
